


The Last Line

by Nigamiestmajeur_e



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, This is not a happy ending after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25229080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nigamiestmajeur_e/pseuds/Nigamiestmajeur_e
Summary: This was the kind of afternoon Harry Potter enjoyed.
Kudos: 5





	The Last Line

This was the kind of afternoon Harry Potter enjoyed.

A cup of tea with his wife and his best friend, their children talking on the other side of the garden, the sun shining on his scarless face, on his messy black hair, on his golden skin. Ron and Ginny were laughing and gosh Harry was blessed to wake up every morning next to such a gorgeous woman with such a beautiful smile, her laugh sounding like a melody. And Ron was the kindest person you would ever meet. To be a dad made him more vulnerable and stronger at the same time. But not funnier though. Rose and Hugo never loved their dad's jokes. He still made Ginny smile, so Harry didn't care.

Ginny. His wife, Ginny Potter-Weasley. His hope, his heart, his love, his everything. The mother of his children. When Harry wanted to choose their names, she let him, aware of what that meant for him to pass the names of his departed family. She didn't want to do it. No, she didn't want to. It was too painful. So she let him choose. She was concerned with Albus Severus, but ultimately it helped the boy, to have the name of a Slytherin headmaster. Harry looked at him sitting on the grass, then looked at Ginny again.  
Ginny. The mother of his... of their children. Harry had realized little by little the burden he gave them. A burden he didn't untie completely himself. But Ginny. Ginny was helping him. Strong Ginny, who was supporting her kids, and her husband. Ginny. She was living under Harry's shadow like her brother did at school, so people had no idea that she was actually more than that, she was actually his light. Ginny. The woman of his life.

The only person who was missing in this perfect reunion was Hermione Granger. But she promised she would come once she finished her job at the Ministry. Honestly, it wasn't quite fair that she had to work even on a Saturday, no matter how essential she was. Harry really hoped she wasn't going to burn out one day because of the work and because of... well... most of the kids who were at the Battle of Hogwarts needed a therapy, obviously.

Ron was the most intelligent of the three of them by basically being a you-know-what-I-think-I-have-done-enough-saving-the-world-for-a-lifetime-now-I-am-just-going-to-enjoy-my-tea person and leaving the Aurors two years after he had joined them. He only became an Auror to not be alone after Hogwarts, before he had realized that Harry was truly his best friend and the fact that they weren't going to work at the same place wouldn't change that. His sanity was a perfect balance for the trio and for almost every Aurors who always came to the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to buy a candy and to talk to the calm, smiling, cheerful Ronald.

This was the kind of afternoon Harry Potter enjoyed. A cup of tea, a garden, the sun.

And then.

An explosion in the living-room. Noises of fires and cracking woods. Harry gave Ginny a look before going inside the house to see what happened. The flames in his chimney had a glimmer of green, floo powder he assumed quickly, but he soon stopped wondering about that. Because there was someone kneeling in the middle of his living-room... No. Worse. Sobbing. And Harry could recognized these wonderful brown curls everywhere.

It was Hermione. Hermione. Hermione Hermione Hermione Hermione.

Harry kneeled next to her, his friend, his best friend, the brightest witch of her age. He gently put his hand on her cheek, her dark skin soft and full of tears, and he tried to look into her eyes. And gosh her eyes. Puffy and red and... and... Terror. Sadness. Sorrow. Fear. She seemed like she saw a Boggart, but Hermione Granger would never ask for help to deal with a Boggart.

"Hermione. Hermione, I'm here."

And then, Hermione Jean Granger cried on Harry's shoulder. The shock was so intense that Harry began to panic : what happened ? what the hell happened ? If he didn't spend most of the afternoon with them, Harry would think that Ron or Rose or Hugo were in danger. What happened ? Did someone die ? Did Hogwarts burn ? Did... did Voldemort...

"My... My parents... They... They went to America..."

Harry's heart went cold. It was like having a Dementor next to him but... no... it was worse. It was much, much worse. Because no Patronus could fight it.

"Dad was driving... And... And a cop... He stopped them apparently because he was driving too fast but he wasn't driving too fast ! It doesn't make sense !"

Harry didn't ask how she knew about it. He didn't ask anything. Hermione already had so many questions in her head, in her heart. Great, powerful, clever Hermione, who didn't understand why. Why did that happen. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

Ron came to the living room and saw them, saw the despair on his wife's face, saw that her universe ended and that there was nothing he could do to fix it. He put his head down.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.   
It wasn't the world the three of them defended.

"And then the cop, he... HE... MY DAD... MY MOM..."

She was shaking now, Hermione Granger was shaking into Harry Potter's arms. He held her closer, and she put her face and her tears on his shoulder, glancing at Ron. But Ron... He wouldn't get it. This pain, this suffering. No, he never would. This pain, this suffering that the Granger's children would know someday. They had their father's red hair. And their mother's cheekbones.Harry was raised by white people but he knew. Of course he knew. The looks and glances, the distrust and judgement, and the dances behind his back, parodies of Bollywood movies he actually never saw. At Hogwarts, it felt so good to be watched for another reason that the color of his skin.

"Harry... I... I don't know what to do..."  
Said Hermione.   
But Harry didn't know any better.   
Him, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One.

And for a second, just a milli-second, he wished Voldemort came back instead. He wished to see Tom Riddle's face again and again, to kill him again and again, to destroy his Horcruxes again and again and again and again. It would be easier, so much easier. At least they knew who to fight, what to fight. At least everyone agreed how bad his ideas was.  
At least evil had a face.

He thought about his children, Georgie, Lily, Albus, he thought about the future waiting for them. He thought about Hermione's children, he thought if she already gave them the talk, the talk that Ron never had. That Ginny never had. But these five kids had golden skin, and one day they would have to fight too, fight hard against something deeply rooted, deeply rotten, fight hard in a way that even magic couldn't protect them.  
Harry ground his teeth, held Hermione tighter, tried not to cry. They saved the world but still.

All was not well.


End file.
